overlay

Today in London, HTC announced three major things: the Desire HD handset, the Desire Z handset, and a new and improved Sense interface. HTC has been very explicit in saying that the Sense is not a UI or an overlay, but rather something else, something whimsical, something… dare we say, magical. After HTC was done doing their best Jonathan Ives impression, they got down to actually detailing what the new Sense (not a UI) thingy will bring. Here is a list of some of the new features:

The boot time of Sense has been cut down to 10 seconds.

DLNA support is built in to allow content streaming to other DLNA devices.

A new incoming call screen slides up from the bottom of the screen instead of taking up the entire screen.

Maps will now cache data to facilitate quicker map rendering.

A digital compass is utilized to allow the map to orient itself to the direction you are heading.

The new Sense focuses on letting you control and interact with your data instead of merely presenting it to you.

A new website will launch next month — htcsense.com — that will allow you to:

Backup and view text messages and call logs.

Remote wipe the device.

Enable call forwarding.

Send map coordinates or trip information.

Locate your phone.

We’re still waiting on the official press release from HTC that will detail all the new goodies that Sense has to offer. We’ll be sure to update you on anything that was missed.

And yet another manufacturer has officially entered the Android game as Sony Ericsson has formally announced the XPERIA X10. Powered by a 1GHz Snapdragon processor and running on Android 1.6 “Donut”, the X10 boasts a 4″ WVGA capacitive touchscreen display, an 8.1 megapixel camera, Wi-Fi, GPS and two flavors of UMTS/HSPA — one of which supports T-Mobile, the other, AT&T — in addition to quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE. Regrettably there is only 1GB of built in memory, although an 8GB microSD card ships in the box. In terms of UI customization, the X10 comes with the UI overlay UX called Rachael (user experience) which extends into two premier apps: Mediascape — the media player which we’ve already seentwice — and Timescape, which more or less is SE’s answer to a MOTOBLUR type skin. Pricing and countries of availability has yet to be announced, but the XPERIA X10 will be available in Q1 2010 in Sensuous Black and Lustre White (yes, we LOL’d, too). Hit the jump for a promo video and a press release.